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Subject: Best All-Around Fighter of World War II
sentinel28a    10/13/2009 3:38:03 PM
Let's try a non-controversial topic, shall we? (Heh heh.) I'll submit the P-51 for consideration. BW and FS, if you come on here and say that the Rafale was the best fighter of WWII, I am going to fly over to France and personally beat you senseless with Obama's ego. (However, feel free to talk about the D.520.)
 
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45-Shooter    Aussygunner   5/18/2011 5:46:19 PM




Something to consider is that under most conditions, the P-40 was much closer to the other two in performance because it had much larger fuel tanks which meant that it could use more throttle for longer. As a case in point, if the Spit or 109 had to cover some distance between base and the mission AO, the it would have to do that at 25-55% throttle, or between 185-210 MPH! The 109 is just about the same. But if the P-40 has to cover the same distance, it's larger fuel tanks permit it to use 75% throttle to go about 310 MPH! I'd like to have 100 MPH in hand when the fight started, wouldn't you?


This is part of the point I keep trying to make that range is equally important to performance as other factors, may be more!





Range was undoubtely an advantage that the P-40 had over both types, but the effect for a WW2 fighter would have been more a matter of how far from base it could safely operate rather than how long it could fight for. Flying a piston engined aircraft on full power doesn't use fuel at anywhere near the rate that operating a jet on afterburner does and the fights were usually short enough in those days that fuel starvation wouldn't have been the big issue that it is now. I think you would find that once the Spits or the '109 got below a safe reserve for a fight, they would have just flown home rather than engaging at a lower power.


I'd also make the point that the advantage was only enjoyed by the P-40 if the enemy only deployed aircraft which it could safely fight. Keep in mind that the P-40C and D was roughly contemporous to the Fw-190A-1 and only got by because the best the German's deployed to NA till 1942 or so was the out of date Bf-109E.






No, you miss the point entirely! It is not how long any plane can fight at full throttle, which is 5 Minutes or less! But what happens the other 99.95% of the time when they are not fighting! 93% of all kills have less than 30 degrees of bank when they die! They are flying at cruise throttle settings, not combat settings! They never see their attacker!

Now for the other 7% of combats. These happen when the target sees, or is warned that he is under attack and shoves the throttle to the fire wall and rolls the plane to turn into his attacker's attack! At this point a significant number of aircraft are shot down before the plane can change direction significantly or have the engine pick up the revs to make real power. It takes a recip engine about one point five seconds to go from cruise to WEP! Some of these 7% are survivors of the first head on pass. Some of them are killed when they are trying to attack a bomber and never saw the defender tracking him through his lead computing gun sight. Again, the target is probably not at WEP, but 75% throttle and the attacker is at 75-100%, but not WEP! The only time the attacker and possibly the target are at WEP is in the long tail chase. Then the attacker must use WEP to catch the target at WEP. But other than that, no combat ever uses WEP and the vast majority never use 100%!!!

 
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45-Shooter    Aussygunner   5/18/2011 7:57:13 PM




Something to consider is that under most conditions, the P-40 was much closer to the other two in performance because it had much larger fuel tanks which meant that it could use more throttle for longer. As a case in point, if the Spit or 109 had to cover some distance between base and the mission AO, the it would have to do that at 25-55% throttle, or between 185-210 MPH! The 109 is just about the same. But if the P-40 has to cover the same distance, it's larger fuel tanks permit it to use 75% throttle to go about 310 MPH! I'd like to have 100 MPH in hand when the fight started, wouldn't you?


This is part of the point I keep trying to make that range is equally important to performance as other factors, may be more!





Range was undoubtely an advantage that the P-40 had over both types, but the effect for a WW2 fighter would have been more a matter of how far from base it could safely operate rather than how long it could fight for. Flying a piston engined aircraft on full power doesn't use fuel at anywhere near the rate that operating a jet on afterburner does and the fights were usually short enough in those days that fuel starvation wouldn't have been the big issue that it is now. I think you would find that once the Spits or the '109 got below a safe reserve for a fight, they would have just flown home rather than engaging at a lower power.


I'd also make the point that the advantage was only enjoyed by the P-40 if the enemy only deployed aircraft which it could safely fight. Keep in mind that the P-40C and D was roughly contemporous to the Fw-190A-1 and only got by because the best the German's deployed to NA till 1942 or so was the out of date Bf-109E.






No, you miss the point entirely! It is not how long any plane can fight at full throttle, which is 5 Minutes or less! But what happens the other 99.95% of the time when they are not fighting! 93% of all kills have less than 30 degrees of bank when they die! They are flying at cruise throttle settings, not combat settings! They never see their attacker!

Now for the other 7% of combats. These happen when the target sees, or is warned that he is under attack and shoves the throttle to the fire wall and rolls the plane to turn into his attacker's attack! At this point a significant number of aircraft are shot down before the plane can change direction significantly or have the engine pick up the revs to make real power. It takes a recip engine about one point five seconds to go from cruise to WEP! Some of these 7% are survivors of the first head on pass. Some of them are killed when they are trying to attack a bomber and never saw the defender tracking him through his lead computing gun sight. Again, the target is probably not at WEP, but 75% throttle and the attacker is at 75-100%, but not WEP! The only time the attacker and possibly the target are at WEP is in the long tail chase. Then the attacker must use WEP to catch the target at WEP. But other than that, no combat ever uses WEP and the vast majority never use 100%!!!

 
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45-Shooter    Aussygunner   5/18/2011 8:03:17 PM




Something to consider is that under most conditions, the P-40 was much closer to the other two in performance because it had much larger fuel tanks which meant that it could use more throttle for longer. As a case in point, if the Spit or 109 had to cover some distance between base and the mission AO, the it would have to do that at 25-55% throttle, or between 185-210 MPH! The 109 is just about the same. But if the P-40 has to cover the same distance, it's larger fuel tanks permit it to use 75% throttle to go about 310 MPH! I'd like to have 100 MPH in hand when the fight started, wouldn't you?


This is part of the point I keep trying to make that range is equally important to performance as other factors, may be more!





Range was undoubtely an advantage that the P-40 had over both types, but the effect for a WW2 fighter would have been more a matter of how far from base it could safely operate rather than how long it could fight for. Flying a piston engined aircraft on full power doesn't use fuel at anywhere near the rate that operating a jet on afterburner does and the fights were usually short enough in those days that fuel starvation wouldn't have been the big issue that it is now. I think you would find that once the Spits or the '109 got below a safe reserve for a fight, they would have just flown home rather than engaging at a lower power.


I'd also make the point that the advantage was only enjoyed by the P-40 if the enemy only deployed aircraft which it could safely fight. Keep in mind that the P-40C and D was roughly contemporous to the Fw-190A-1 and only got by because the best the German's deployed to NA till 1942 or so was the out of date Bf-109E.






No, you miss the point entirely! It is not how long any plane can fight at full throttle, which is 5 Minutes or less! But what happens the other 99.95% of the time when they are not fighting! 93% of all kills have less than 30 degrees of bank when they die! They are flying at cruise throttle settings, not combat settings! They never see their attacker!

Now for the other 7% of combats. These happen when the target sees, or is warned that he is under attack and shoves the throttle to the fire wall and rolls the plane to turn into his attacker's attack! At this point a significant number of aircraft are shot down before the plane can change direction significantly or have the engine pick up the revs to make real power. It takes a recip engine about one point five seconds to go from cruise to WEP! Some of these 7% are survivors of the first head on pass. Some of them are killed when they are trying to attack a bomber and never saw the defender tracking him through his lead computing gun sight. Again, the target is probably not at WEP, but 75% throttle and the attacker is at 75-100%, but not WEP! The only time the attacker and possibly the target are at WEP is in the long tail chase. Then the attacker must use WEP to catch the target at WEP. But other than that, no combat ever uses WEP and the vast majority never use 100%!!!

 
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45-Shooter    Aussygunner   5/18/2011 9:32:47 PM




Something to consider is that under most conditions, the P-40 was much closer to the other two in performance because it had much larger fuel tanks which meant that it could use more throttle for longer. As a case in point, if the Spit or 109 had to cover some distance between base and the mission AO, the it would have to do that at 25-55% throttle, or between 185-210 MPH! The 109 is just about the same. But if the P-40 has to cover the same distance, it's larger fuel tanks permit it to use 75% throttle to go about 310 MPH! I'd like to have 100 MPH in hand when the fight started, wouldn't you?


This is part of the point I keep trying to make that range is equally important to performance as other factors, may be more!





Range was undoubtely an advantage that the P-40 had over both types, but the effect for a WW2 fighter would have been more a matter of how far from base it could safely operate rather than how long it could fight for. Flying a piston engined aircraft on full power doesn't use fuel at anywhere near the rate that operating a jet on afterburner does and the fights were usually short enough in those days that fuel starvation wouldn't have been the big issue that it is now. I think you would find that once the Spits or the '109 got below a safe reserve for a fight, they would have just flown home rather than engaging at a lower power.


I'd also make the point that the advantage was only enjoyed by the P-40 if the enemy only deployed aircraft which it could safely fight. Keep in mind that the P-40C and D was roughly contemporous to the Fw-190A-1 and only got by because the best the German's deployed to NA till 1942 or so was the out of date Bf-109E.






No, you miss the point entirely! It is not how long any plane can fight at full throttle, which is 5 Minutes or less! But what happens the other 99.95% of the time when they are not fighting! 93% of all kills have less than 30 degrees of bank when they die! They are flying at cruise throttle settings, not combat settings! They never see their attacker!

Now for the other 7% of combats. These happen when the target sees, or is warned that he is under attack and shoves the throttle to the fire wall and rolls the plane to turn into his attacker's attack! At this point a significant number of aircraft are shot down before the plane can change direction significantly or have the engine pick up the revs to make real power. It takes a recip engine about one point five seconds to go from cruise to WEP! Some of these 7% are survivors of the first head on pass. Some of them are killed when they are trying to attack a bomber and never saw the defender tracking him through his lead computing gun sight. Again, the target is probably not at WEP, but 75% throttle and the attacker is at 75-100%, but not WEP! The only time the attacker and possibly the target are at WEP is in the long tail chase. Then the attacker must use WEP to catch the target at WEP. But other than that, no combat ever uses WEP and the vast majority never use 100%!!!

 
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Aussiegunneragain    Shooter   5/18/2011 10:53:14 PM
That web link that you provide does not compare 12.7mm ball/AP to AP 20mm rounds. If you want to see the shape of the HS AP rounds you just need to cut and paste the link I provided into your task bar to look. Otherwise if you don't have adobe acrobat to view a PDF file, get it ... it's free, or just ask somebody else here to verify the shape of the rounds for you. Your IT problem isn't an excuse for denying the information that I have provided.
 Anyway, comparing the penetration of a 20mm HE round with a 12.7mm ball is comparing apples with oranges. 20mm AP rounds had a much greater penetrative ability than 12.7mm, as weapons of larger calibre for similar muzzle velocities do. That is why for example, rifle calibre anti tank rifles were replaced by guns of progressively larger calibres. It is a no brainer and because of this I don't propose to continue on this part of the debate.
 
Re the time to target, at a range of say 500 metres at maximum deflection a 0.05 (your estimate) second delay means the pilot would have to put on an extra 6.4 metres of lead, hardly a huge ask against a target the size of a B-17 which was over 22 metres long. That is if those long shots were even attempted at such a big deflection, my bet would be that they were either head or tail on where there is no or little deflection. It just isn't an issue.
 
Re nose mounted versus wing mounted guns, I agree that the former were better against bombers, though the latter could be zeroed for the rounds to intersect a particular point. They wouldn't have achieved no hits head on, just less hits. Spread out guns were probably better for the average pilot against fighters though.
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Shooter   5/18/2011 11:07:03 PM
I did misunderstand what you were getting at with the P-40 but you are still wrong. In late 1941 and early 1942 Spit Mk V pilots who went into areas where the Fw-190A operated were instructed to cruise at high speed so that they could have a reasonable chance of avoiding a bounce and have a chance to bounce in return. If their fuel didn't allow them to do that in a particular area, they just didn't go there ... they didn't cruise at a lower speed.
What's more, had the contemporous version of the P-40, the Tomahawk operated there it would have faired even worse than the Spit, despite it's higher fuel capacity. In the first instance it was slower, so would have had to operate at a higher throttle setting in order to cruise at high speed. There goes at least some of the range advantage. Secondly irrespective of how fast it cruised, it was so inferior to the Fw-190 (about a 40mph speed disadvantage before we even get onto rate of climb!) that it would have just been chopped up. The Kittyhawk wasn't much better, and that was contemporous to the Spit Mk 9 which was a match for the Fw-190. Irrespective of how you spin it, the P-40 was not up there with contemporous models of the Spit or the Bf-109.
 
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Wing guns   5/18/2011 11:09:57 PM
Incidentally, why are you going on about wing guns like they are a Spitfire only affliction, when both the P-47 and P-51 had them?
 
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45-Shooter       5/19/2011 12:35:34 AM

Incidentally, why are you going on about wing guns like they are a Spitfire only affliction, when both the P-47 and P-51 had them?

I never assigned any specific type to the wing mounted guns Vs nose mounted guns argument. It is a huge problem that has been ignored by most of the people who analyze the planes of WW-II. In my example, the guns in the Spitfire are 7, 10 and 12 feet from the line of sight. When "Harmonized" at 200 yards, the bullet streams from the eight guns start at that distance from the LOS, rise 45" to the LOS and converge at that range and then diverge to 7, 10 and 12 feet from the line of fire at 400 yards, now over sixty inches high. At the last firing range allowed by the possibility of a dead on collision of 400 M, the bullet streams will be 7.7, 11 and 13.2 horizontal feet and 65" higher than the LOS threw the sight. Since the fuselage of all WW-II heavy bombers is less than 12' wide, the perfectly aimed burst will miss by 1.7 wide and 4.7' high by the closest guns. the other six guns all miss by larger distances. At the open fire range of 700 M, the miss distances are very much larger! Except for the very large dispersion caused by the flimsy mounting system in the twistable Spit wing, NONE of those shots would hit! ( As the guns vibrated the sprayed the bullets into a 30-40" circle at 100 yards, at least according to Anthony Williams in his discussion of WW-II aircraft guns!)
The numbers for the P-40/51 are similar to the inner most guns on the Spit. The P-47 has a larger difference from the gun to the line of sight because of both the big prop and the height of the LOS! It misses by a much larger distances, both vertically and horizontally! Because of these facts, I do like any fighter with wing mounted guns as the "best of" anything! I also favor the Fw-190/all and Me-109-E/F/G/K as single engined fighter planes. I also think the Germans were right to fear the P-38.
 
As to the point you make that Spit pilots were required to use large throttle openings in combat AOs, you are right! But I preceded my comments with the preposition that "if they had to fly some distance to get to and from the AO"! Under those conditions, you either fly slow and vulnerable, or seed the air space to the enemy! The second point comes to bear in the alternate history of the BoB. If the Germans continue to bomb the southern England air fields, then the RAF must abandon the close fields and is also required to cover long distances to get to the AO, so that they are no longer advantaged over their Luftwaffe enemies! It is my contention that it was the difference in permissible throttle pos that made the Spit superior to the Me-109 in the BoB! The K/L ratio reverses just as it did in real life over Northern France and the Germans win the war by invading England.
 
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45-Shooter       5/19/2011 1:28:18 AM

If you are going to compare 12.7mm rounds to 20mm ones you have to compare apples with apples. The 20mm x 110RB HE rounds of that family may have had a flat nose, but the AP rounds certainly didn't. They were just as pointy as any 12.7mm round and therefore would be expected to transfer the entire effect of their greater kinetic energy through the target. Here are the pictures if you don't believe me.

 

>>

 

As for the time of the round travelling to target, the British version of the HS 404 had a muzzle velocity of about 840m/s versus 887m/s for the M2. Over 500 metres that means that the 20mm round would have arrived at the target about 0.02seconds later than the 12.7mm round, an insigificant difference in terms of lead required if firing at a deflection ... especially against a bomber sized target. I actually doubt whether the flatter trajectory of the 12.7mm round would have made much of a difference at those ranges either, especially with the benefit of tracer. The 20mm would have undoubtedly provided the opportunity to hit earlier and for a longer burst. In any case the ME-262's used to start their firing runs from 500 metres with 30mm guns out of necessity because of their speed and they managed to hit the bombers so I doubt that it would have been beyond any other half decent cannon armed fighter jock.

 

Another thought for you, the Germans liked to conduct head on attacks against bombers to avoid the rear guns. Lots of important stuff is in the front of an aircraft, like the aircrew, so under that mode of operation don't you think that HE shells with their fragmentation effects might be more effective than AP penetration?


The pics in the link you provide are from modern post Korean war and even latter ammo, not a single one of them is from WW-II! See the link I gave to see WW-II ammo! The difference in ToF I posted is for 250 yards. At 250 M it is 0.06 seconds. Like I said it is not a significant difference at the "Average Combat Ranges" of WW-II Allied AC. German AC and the P-38 enjoyed substantially longer combat ranges because of their CL mounted guns! Note that the Germans expected to be able to fire at 1,000 M range! They looked for numerous ways to install the Mk-103 because the Mk-108 had 41 M of drop at 1,000 M! That made getting hits at ranges much over 400 M almost impossible! Because of the difference between the two projectiles BCs, the .50 has more remaining velocity at 900 M (511) than the Hisso at 600 (500).
At those types of ranges it does become a significant effect! Because of the fact that perforation power is proportional to the Velocity squared, the .50 soon has significantly more power to make holes in things than the WW-II 20 MM ammo.  emember that it is energy per unit of area that determines the ability of any projectile to make a hole in any target. Do the numbers yourself. At 300 M those numbers are 736 MPS-46Gm and 673 MPS-130Gm and 1.317/3.142
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Shooter   5/19/2011 10:49:25 PM
You can clearly see a WW2 20mm x 110RB AP round, with pointy nose, in the third photo down on this link to Anthony G. Williams' site. Don't tell me that it isn't a WW2 round, he is a published source who has put is credibility on the line by putting his name to his work. You are not and neither is the anonymous person who wrote that link you provided.

>
 
 
 
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